Page 117 of Falling Too Late

“Wren? I’m back!” I hollered into the house, kicking my boots off at the front of the house and heading in. I headed back to the kitchen. No one was there, a pizza box sitting on the counter. I went to the sink and used the bar of soap to scrub my hands and forearms, getting the grease and grime off. After drying my hands, I flipped the box open and pulled out a slice. It was cold but I bit into it. Cold pizza was better anyway.

“Wren?” I walked through the lower floor from room to room. I paused for a minute in her studio, flipping on the lights. The room was a chaotic mess. There were papers on every surface. Smudges of charcoal on the wall. Small bins of paper towels with charcoal dust on them.

I walked farther into the room and opened a folder. There was an image of a girl with her knees to her chest and her head tucked into them. Shadows of bruises along her back. I flipped to another page that looked like a self-portrait. It showed Wren’s face, eyes closed, head turned up as if she was looking at the sky. More shadows of bruises along her face.

Nothing in Foster’s paperwork said she went back to therapy, but I started to think that art was her therapy this time around.

I closed the folder and left the room the way I found it. I took the stairs two at a time, finishing my slice at the top. King and Queen were lying outside one of the doors.

“Wren?”

“Come in.”

I pushed open the door to find her in the tub. Her hair was pinned on her head, stray tresses drenched around her neck. I could see bits of steam rising from the water.

“Hot enough for you?” I asked, a smirk on my lips.

“Eh. Could be hotter.” She grinned. “Where you been?”

“Got the truck running.” I shrugged. “Went for a drive.”

She nodded, the water rippled around her. “Feel any better?”

I shrugged again. I didn’t know how I felt.

“Join me?”

“Pretty sure I’ll melt.” I chuckled.

“Don’t be a wuss.”

I shut the door and pulled my shirt off, kicking out of my jeans. If Wren wanted me in the tub, I’d get in the tub. There were too many years between us without me being able to give her exactly what she wanted. She leaned forward in the tub and I slid in behind her.

I tried to hold it in, but the farther in I sank the more I hissed. “God damn, woman, you trying to burn my flesh off?”

She laughed and it was a beautiful sound. I didn’t think about the pain anymore, I just wanted to listen to her laugh more. She leaned back against me, laying her head back against my shoulder.

A slight breeze came in through the cracked window and aradio droned on in the corner. She started to hum along to a song I didn’t recognize.

I thought back to our early years, when she first came to live with us. There were some days the fighting from next door was so loud that she would sit in the opposite part of the apartment, with her hands over her ears, trying to block out the sound.

I had stolen someone’s MP3 player and slipped headphones on her to help her block out the sound. It worked for a while, until the battery died and I didn’t have any batteries to replace it.

On the edge of the tub, a washcloth was laid on the edge. I tugged it off and dipped it in the water before running it over the tops of her shoulders.

“Talk to me, Alex, what’s going through your head?”

I methodically washed her shoulders, trailing down to the tops of her hands while I tried to put my thoughts into words.

“None of this is what I expected,” I said simply.

“You thought,everyoneabandoned you?”

It sounded bad. It sounded like I didn’t have faith in a single soul.

“I did something that no one thought I would do. My own mother wasn’t speaking to me.” I shrugged my shoulders, hating feeling like I’d lost faith in everyone. Like I was the one who gave up on them.

“It’s okay, Alex.” She tipped her head back, looking up at me. “Alex, we love you. We are all just thankful you are here, and we aren’t going to take this second chance for granted.”

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